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“If you meet the Buddha on the path, show him the photos of the grandchildren” David Bader

A few months ago a woman in my office was showing me some pictures on her I- phone of her best friend’s new baby. I asked how the pictures got on her phone. She smiled because she knows I’m a luddite and a technophobe and said “Ah, Jon. It’s this incredible new ‘app’ for the I-phone where I bump my phone to hers and it transfers the pictures!” Well. I could relate to this because I remember when Dr. Spock would hold his hands a certain way and apply the Vulcan Death Grip to a scaly-looking alien. Then I thought “Wait a minute!... I didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday and I knew the many times that Carolyn would tease me about not having a computer in my office and me still living in the 20th century, (actually, early 20th century), so I pretended to be impressed by the ‘joke’. Well, of course, it is an ‘app’ and I did happen to fall off the turnip truck yesterday, and just about every day for the last 15 years!
Did you know that a 20 pound lobster is about 100 years old? You know how I know? Because while my friend and I were watching the sun set at Horseneck Beach in Westport, he looked it up on his i-phone in about 13 seconds!... On a hike, not only could my friend hold up his I-phone to a bird song and identify the bird, he could recreate the bird’s song- again in about 13 seconds!...My son-in-law is so lovingly patient when he tries to reassure me for the 8th time that the computer will not eat me while I try to download the podcast of “Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me” on my Ipod (a gift from my ever-hopeful family that I will one day walk bravely, by choice, into the 21st century).
You know the scene in many movies where the heroes are being chased and one of them sprains an ankle and knows he can’t make it back to the safety of the fort? Well, it’s sort of like that where inside I want to say “No, you go on to the 21st century. Save yourself. Enjoy the bird songs and the downloads and the uploads and the tweets and Face Book and the jpegs and the pdf’s. Leave me here to write a handwritten letter and to read a book without a Kindle.” But I don’t say it out loud. Because I don’t want to disappoint them. And, I guess, really, I don’t want to give up on me.
And also because my dear friend, Donna, sends me an amazing poem on my home computer that cracks my heart wide open. And because my dear friend, Peter, can post these words on our blog and he can bring me, through a ‘link’ Deva Premal’s divine voice of chanting. And because my dear friend, Linda, brings me stories about her children that bring tears to my eyes. And because I’m learning, ver-r-y slowly, how to ‘google’ sacred poetry and wisdom lore that truly change my life…. So, I admit that at one time I was really rooting for the Empaths, just from a pure self-survival instinct. Now, I root for everyone. Because truly, beauty and redemption are everywhere we look- even on the internet.
With Love and Respect, Jon